We want to learn how to be filled with the Spirit and how to maintain that fullness.
A worshipper can never stay defeated. In worship we can become so full of the Spirit that in His presence we can directly receive from the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit is a genius at worship and can teach us so much.
The tabernacle of David is being raised up. There are other aspects of the tabernacle of David, but worship is foundational. Our worship must go beyond the veil.
The Holy Spirit is pictured as the river of life; The river of God flows from the throne of God inside us into our spirit.
When we worship the Lord in spirit, our spirit touches the Lord becoming aware of His presence. His Spirit fills our spirit and then our soul.
The life of God flows from Christ in us into our spirit and then into our soul and body into the atmosphere around us.
When a person is filled with the Spirit those whose spirits are open to the Lord can sense the Lord’s presence being around us.
In the midst of our worship there must be not only giving praise unto the Lord, but also a drawing from Him.
We need to concentrate as we worship, we need to focus until we have an awareness that we are drawing or pulling down his fullness in the realm of the spirit into us.
When we worship, we lift our hands. As we reach up to YHWY in the realm of the spirit, we draw from Him, but we also give Him praise at the same time. With an almost explosive concentration, yet without any physical activity, we need to get the sensation of lifting up to YHWH. The sensing of our spirit ascending to the Lord, we are approaching His throne in the realm of the spirit. We reach up as though we are projecting ourselves right into His presence.
The Lord is a fountain, and it’s all by grace. We may have some deep needs inside, but the Holy Spirit can take care of them if He is filling our life. So, we don’t worry about anything but trust Him. Without self-condemnation, we just reach out and embrace the lord, and the Holy Spirit through our spirit will show us what is missing of Himself in our life and displace it with His Spirit.
We are under grace, the empowering presence and nature of God that transforms our life. God gives us many promises and sets many blessings before us which we can draw from.
John 17:20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
This is part of the Lord’s prayer, what the church and the world call the Lord’s prayer is the disciples’ prayer. This is how the world seeps into the church, they believe the teachings of man, thinking it is of God.
We need ears to hear what Jesus is saying to us. He desiresthat we all may be one, just as the Father was in Jesus and Jesus was in the Father, that we might be one in the Father and the son.
One is heís in the Greek. It means One, the first cardinal numeral. It means one spirit not two spirits. We need to understand the depth of which Jesus is speaking.
There was a person who said to Jesus “good teacher”, He was looking at Jesus from a human level, he did not look at him as YHWH, the Father.
Matthew 19:16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
Jesus was saying why do you call me good? You are looking at me from a human perspective. On the human level no one is good in the sense of what they do or say. But Jesus only did what he saw the Father do and say what he heard the Father say, therefore his teaching was the Father’s teaching, not a man’s teaching, because he was one spirit with the Father.
Now what I am going to say in not heresy, but you are Jesus on the earth, and you must see yourself this way. But you cannot unless you are aware of the Christ in your spirit, and yield to him.
2 Corinthians 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
1 Corinthians 12: 12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.
Christ is a many member body, no longer just on man on the earth in a flesh body.
When Jesus ascended on high, he universalized his spirit, so that he was born in our spirit, as Christ in our spirit.
But we will not be able to function as Christ in the earth unless we are mature and can discern the Christ in our spirit and yield to him.
So, what does it mean to be filled with all the fullness of God?
It means that we have been invaded, interpenetrated with the divine nature and abilities of God, so that it is no longer us who lives but Christ who lives through us, this is the glory we have being the offspring of God.
God has spoken the New Creation into existence by His word in eternity. The word became flesh and our old man died with Christ on the cross, and His Spirit was transferred into us, the spirit of Christ.
By His faith we lay hold upon what Jesus has already provided for us in the spirit realm and through His patience it becomes manifested in the time and space realm.
We can believe for the perfect will of God if we love the Lord. How do we love the Lord? We let His love fill us as we sense his love in our spirit, and it then just flows back to Him. He loves us; and we can reach out and draw that love from Him.
We need to let our worship change a little: and speak in tongues, sing in tongues a little. The Holy Spirit tells us in I Corinthians 14 that in tongues we give thanks well, but our understanding is unfruitful. This means that the Holy Spirit is using our spirit, and bypassing our conscious mind; therefore, our understanding is unfruitful.
But as we are worshiping God with our spirit, the thoughts of God will also flow into our mind, so that our understanding is also fruitful.
The voice of our spirit is different from the voice of our conscious mind or soul. When we speak in tongues, it comes directly from our spirit. When we speak in tongues, we edify ourselves, we build up our spirit so that our speaking can be prophetic and we edify someone else, and then the blessing will also boomerang back to us.
When we are concerned about being full of the Holy Spirit, we speak in tongues. Do not be afraid it will be mechanical if you have already been worshiping in the Spirit; just quietly let the flow of tongues come forth. You may say, “What if it’s me?” Of course, it is you; it isn’t someone else. We speak in tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance. “I’m afraid it will be in the flesh.” It will always be somewhat in the flesh because we are conscious of the earth, only when our brain waves slow down to the point of almost sleeping can we actually be in the Spirit, because we are seeing on the screen of our imagination like dreaming but still awake and we are not conscious of the earth realm because we can participate in what we are seeing. It is like watching a movie, but we are actually in that movie, and you begin to meet and interact with people who live in that realm.
What is meant by the flesh, anyway? Is there anyone who isn’t in the flesh somewhat? In any manifestation, at the very best there’s a little flesh. What we’re concerned about is that it is not all flesh.
We just exercise our will. With the moving of the Holy Spirit, the human initiative is such that we begin speaking, praying, singing in tongues. It’s our responsibility, it’s something that we can start and stop at will. Forget everything else, just begin, let the tongues flow, and edify yourself. Do it with real faith. Don’t be bound, thinking, “Oh, it might not be of God.”
Every born again believer can speak in tongues it is just that their conscious mind blocks it, but when we are so filled with the Spirit, being baptized or immersed in God the first time, we are so conscious of the presence of God that we hear words in our spirit and speak them, but you need to remember some of them, so that you can speak them when the Spirit lifts off of you and then if you speak them over and over again, “a couple words” more will be given until there is a flow.
One of the most common causes of problems is guilt—that we become our own judge, jury, and executioner. Self-condemnation freezes people spiritually because they do not judge correctly; they just create a hell for themselves, and there they stand, condemned and guilty. Forget that.
The Holy Spirit comes to minister grace to us— we need to draw it in. We focus on the provision of Jesus and give no thought to deceitful lusts. Who are we, to condemn what God is bringing forth within us? Victory is a gift you must embrace, see yourself as a person who is free.
People, who go into introspection, trying to find out what is wrong, will find many things; but many times they are the trivial, nonessential things that God doesn’t care about, while they overlook the things that God wants to become to us.
When we open our heart to the Lord, we don’t condemn ourselves; we just start drawing from the Lord. When there’s a flow of spontaneous thoughts, and we are rejoicing, it won’t be long before the problem (if there is one) will come to the surface. Then we can deal with it by saying, “Lord, deliver and cleanse me”; but if we struggle with it ourselves we can’t handle it.
Receiving the Holy Spirit should not involve any spotlight of attention. It should be a simple experience that opens the door to a walk with God.
The Holy Spirit will abide with us forever. To receive a flow of tongues we simply concentrate on praising God, tongues will flow much easier than if we stand back and wonder, “What am I doing? What am I saying?” Be aware that it is a flow of beautiful praise to the Lord. Although we don’t know what we are saying, we do know the general idea of it and immediately the tongues will flow much easier.
These little hints will help you, but you may need to go a little deeper in this. You may be opening your heart and singing forth in tongues, praising the Lord, but not yet filled to overflowing.
When we are filled, we will run over, like an overflowing tank of water. Only then will we have blessing to spare with which we can bless others.
Learn to draw and draw from the Holy Spirit; and after a while you will feel a peace, a fullness, and an exhilarating joyfulness.
We need to receive and maintain the overflow—for that is where the blessing is to other people. We are all much more eager to receive blessing from someone who is bubbling over, and rejoicing in the Lord, than from an individual who is somewhat defeated and not feeling well yet has the burden to pray for us. It’s the overflow that counts. Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:18–19.
To minister in the Spirit, we must be filled with the Spirit. I have received a lot of personal ministry from other people over the years, and instead of building me up, it drained whatever life of God I had in me, out of me, because the person was not filled with the Spirit.
When I listen to other ministries, I really must build walls to protect my spirit. Because of the mixture of flesh in the person can totally devastate me because the people are not being fed anything that will cause spiritual growth, I just have to be grateful that there is a level of God in it and remember back when I also was on that level. We all start out as babies in Christ.
We all need the presence of God, and if our words are not filled with the Spirit, we are not helping people we are pushing them away from us.
The gift of tongues is like a siphon. We can take water or gas out of a tank by siphoning. After you start the siphon, it will continue flowing as long as there is anything in the tank. That is exactly what we do in this—we start siphoning with praise. Sometimes it’s like priming a pump as we enter in by faith. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and we simply open our mouth, believing that we will speak forth in tongues. Sometimes it comes quite spontaneously; but whether it does or not is unimportant.
Every individual’s experience is unique and different. We couldn’t use another person’s experience any more than we could use their false teeth. We must have our own experience, in our own special way. But we make a mistake if we stop before we’re filled to overflowing.
With that overflow we will feel the peace, the cleansing and purging of every restraint upon our mind. We can drink and drink without understanding much about the Holy Spirit; but when we hit a certain level, just as if someone had pushed a button, it starts gushing. We drill so deep and then suddenly we have a gusher; and that’s what we want.
When we receive the Holy Spirit we have a deep sense of His presence, an awareness of the Lord; but don’t stop there, as wonderful as it is. Go on until it’s bubbling over.
An experience will be whatever we believe for it to be. We can believe to just get a touch from the Lord, and say, “Praise the Lord; I received the Holy Spirit.” But why not be so filled that it keeps flowing over and over?
Young people who are addicted to drugs find it easier to kick the habit after they are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. When we’re filled with the Holy Spirit all the patterns of our thinking and our personality are exposed to God; He’s indwelling us and filling us, and things change. Let’s also see that our children (from about two years old and up) are filled with the Holy Spirit. They need it, for they’re being raised in a day when there’s so much demonic activity.
People are content to settle for too little. We all ought to walk and commune with God and be temples of the Holy Spirit.
Why don’t people want this deeper mystical walk with God? There’s a reason: a cross is involved with it. Usually, people like to receive something if it doesn’t cost them anything. Remember what David said: “I’ll not give unto the Lord that which costs me nothing.” Is that you’re feeling too? Do you want the cost to be total? Do you want to be a disciple?
Sometimes people have a mental block against tongues because of someone they knew who was a fanatic, and then it seems difficult for them to speak in tongues. They should receive good teaching on it and be in a place where they can receive the Holy Spirit by faith.
Others may have a restraint about tongues because it seems like a repetition of sounds. When Isaiah prophesied about this (and that prophecy is quoted in I Corinthians 14 where Paul speaks about tongues), he said, “With stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people” (Isaiah 28:11). People have claimed receiving the Holy Spirit who only stammered, “Ama, ama, ama” but they claimed the experience and later they went on to clear tongues.
So stammering is all right, and repeating the same syllable over and over is all right. The Holy Spirit could be saying something that you know nothing about. For example, if someone were to repeat over and over, “Amo, amo, amo, amo” you might think it strange, unless you realized they were saying, “I love, I love, I love, I love,” in the language of the early church. You might get another syllable, “Amo oh, amo oh, amo, oh” until you realize you are saying “I love you; I love you; I love you”. When you speak in tongues you don’t know what you are saying. But you can get a flow of prophecy where you get the interpretation.
My own personal experience, I was in my room all alone, and received a powerful revelation from God in something I was reading, and the Holy Spirit’s Presence came into my room filling it so that all I was conscious of was God, and I heard three words in my spirit “Ama, Shuma, Machunda”. And then I would just repeat those words because I heard them so clearly for a few days and then a flow of words started, and now I pray in tongues at will and it will continually change.
The handwriting on the wall at the time of Daniel was comprised of only four words: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” But when it was interpreted, it turned out to be about thirty words: “God hath numbered thy kingdom and brought it to an end. Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
So don’t worry about the sounds that may be coming forth; but ask the Lord to give you a fluent tongue. Ask the Lord also to let you speak to Him in different languages, and watch it change from time to time. Don’t become discouraged if you begin with the same sounds over and over; but don’t be content with that.
You learn things in the realm of the Spirit as well as in any other realm; and soon you will learn, not how to speak a language, but how to be more yielded so that a beautiful flow that comes forth. You speak as the Spirit gives utterance, and though you may not be too yielded to it at first the utterance will become more pronounced at a later time as you yield to it.